Use these FAQs to achieve level 5.
A patient reports to the emergency department in such severe respiratory distress that she cannot communicate during the history of present illness (HPI) portion of the E/M service. The patient also presents to...
Here’s why you should append modifier 25.
Question: A 47-year-old male reports to the ED complaining of a painful, swollen, and reddening right thumb. The physician performs an expanded problem focused history and examination, which uncovers two splinters. The ED...
Forget about incident-to in the facility, but consider this similar billing technique.
ED coders that have never heard of “incident-to” billing have nothing to worry about, as you cannot code for “incident-to” services in the hospital. Coders that don’t understand...
Measuring total removal lengths is a no-no … here’s why.
Your ED physician removes a pair of benign lesions from the patient’s left thigh; you add the repair lengths and code based on those numbers. You’ve coded correctly … right?…
Accounting for depth is a tricky task when coding closure. Practices interested in ethically boosting their bottom line and getting $80 or more for the same closure repair need to walk the line that separates simple from intermediate. What Makes a Repair “Simple”? A wound closure is a simple repair if the procedure: is simple; is a single-layer closure involving [...] Related articles:
Follow our links and advice to put more plusses in your claims column Back again for 2010 is Medicare’s incentive-driven physician quality reporting initiative (PQRI), aimed at tracking quality metric or patient care services that physicians provide. When the practice treats enough patients in the same category, some PQRI dollars might be only a few codes [...] Related articles:
Question: A 42-year-old patient reports to the ED early on Tuesday morning for evaluation of uncontrollable shaking in her extremities and severe pain in her neck. The EP admits the patient to observation at 7 a.m. and orders blood tests and a CT scan — however, the shaking continues to worsen. The EP consults with a [...] Related articles:
No maybes here: Answer this question wrong and you will code incorrectly. When your ED physician performs fracture care for a patient, be ready to pounce on evidence of manipulation, as CPT often breaks fracture care codes along the manipulation line. The $kinny: Let’s say the physician performs closed treatment on a fractured collarbone; if she uses [...] Related articles: